UPDATE – RECRUITMENT CLOSED
This is a call out for two artists to produce creative responses to The Rum Story and its history. This is as part of The Rum Story Re-Imagined Project, which has been made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Click here for the full brief telling you all about the role and how to apply.
There are two separate commission opportunities here – each worth £4,500. We want two separate artists to each create an artistic response to The Rum Story’s history – in a way that supports the re-imagined Rum Story to:
- Become more accessible, thought-provoking and innovative
- Tell a more complete history, including less well-known narratives
- Get visitors interested in their heritage and curious about how past links to present
- Get locals actively engaging with Whitehaven’s heritage.
The chosen artists will create works of art for the collection and long-term display at The Rum Story from January 2026. We are not specifying what art form or creative medium should be used.
Artistic responses should address the lack of representation of the stories of Black people in the collections and displays at The Rum Story. They should help bring the personal identity and agency back to those people who were living in slavery/connected to the history of The Rum Story.
We hope that these creative responses will:
- Involve creative interventions where there are gaps in primary source material
- Find ways of centring Black voices
- Help make The Rum Story a more human and caring space
- Take something inherently traumatic and find ways to subvert that or reclaim it
- Help redress the balance and create visibility for people who were enslaved.
Application deadline: 12pm on 13 August.
Katy Haigh, The Rum Story Re-Imagined Project Manager, July 2025
